Casu Consulto
by Pandastacia
Summary: A twist in their story - the soccer captain and valedictorian. It's not what you think.
1. Casu Consulto

**Dedication**: to SasuSaku Month, writing marathons, & Last Second Syndrome (LSS. Defined as being stumped until the very last second of a deadline of sorts).  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I do not own Naruto.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: The lamp had to go, and, with that attempt, she came.  
><strong>Prompt<strong>: "What are you so desperate for?"

* * *

><p>He had it all (vaguely) planned out.<p>

Everyone else was out of the way. His parents were out at a paint store, looking at colors for the guest room. His mother had been musing about it for a while. "Blue – or maybe _yellow. _Or pink? But it could _confuse_…" had been her departing words to herself before the door slammed shut behind her. Sasuke had stared at the closed door along with his brother, neither saying a word before they turned away form each other to do whatever they needed to do.

Maybe no one spoke of what her behavior could mean, and for good reason. Mikoto Uchiha had, in very recent times, been short of temper and odd in manner. Just the week before, she had gone from being excited about Sasuke's perfect final exam grades to weeping about how her "baby was leaving her for the cold, hard world", leaving him to awkwardly stand there as he was suffocated by her hug. Add to that the fact that Itachi had come home from class to found her eating a mixture of peanut butter and pickles and no one wanted to bring any of it up.

Meanwhile, Itachi had just holed himself in his room with someone after they had rung their doorbell. Perhaps most parents would be wary about this, especially since this person was most definitely female and Itachi's track record with girls, while not consisting of a long series of notches on a bedpost, was hardly innocent.

But no – their parents were most assuredly _not home_ and _not worried about anything at all_.

And Sasuke was in the clear.

Before coming outside, he had opened the third window from the left side of the front door.

He grabbed his soccer ball from where it rested, slightly dusty, in the farthest corner of the coat closet and flung himself out the door into the middle of their front lawn. Turning around in the area of grass in front of the open window, Sasuke placed the soccer ball at his feet and looked up at his target

Right at that wretched excuse for a lamp.

It had to be the ugliest thing he had ever seen, no matter what he told the dobe every time he tried to have a go at one of the cheerleaders. The stand bit was in the shape of what must've been intended to be a dancing couple. Perhaps the designer meant to make it a whimsical kind of romantic.

Except they looked like two fox-trotting garden gnomes, one in a red suit while the other seemed to be cross-dressing in a jungle green gown, under a frilly lampshade of neon _pink_.

Hardly romantic, yet his mother _loved_ that lamp. His father had gotten it three months ago for their anniversary. A true last minute gift, he'd snagged it right off the deck of his secretary (left her more than what it was worth, Sasuke suspected darkly) and brought it home five minutes after his mother had called, wondering what they were going to do for dinner.

He was in really desperate straits when it came to that _thing_. Whenever he would find himself just about to knock it off the table, someone would appear before he could say it was _just an accident_. He couldn't just… take it somewhere and hope no one notices its disappearance – his mother was unreasonable about it. She directed the maids as they dusted it every day and, without fail, would end up saying they were incapable and do it herself. Then, when his friends came over, Naruto would find _some way_ to pass by it and try to draw a moustache on the one in the gown.

It was _over_.

Gritting his teeth, Sasuke took seven steps backward before reversing his direction and driving his right foot into the ball.

Like a blurry comet, it flew towards the window.

Except… it wasn't the _right_ open window and someone just so happened to be walking right by it.

"Ah!"

He… hadn't planned for that.

Turning on the spot to face the bushes between his house and their neighbors, Sasuke pretended to be deeply interested in what laid between the leaves.

"Oof!"

The ball smacked him right in the nose, throwing him off balance. He landed square on his side, wincing when his elbow slammed him in the side. There was the distant sound of the secondary door closing loudly, but he was more concerned with the loud pounding of his heartbeat in his ears and the taste of grass in his mouth.

Slowly, he turned to face the front of the house.

Sakura Haruno – one of his best friends from school who, he just remembered, had asked Itachi to help her with Calculus – was standing on the lowest front step. Her hand was braced against her forehead as she _glared_ at him, her eyes like cold green ice.

"Sasuke?" she growled.

From where he was, half-lying on the ground, Sasuke could just get enough of a view that he could see her hands braced on her hips. Not a good sign, he decided.

"Sakura."

She left the front step and stomped over to stand right by his side, a few strands of her pink hair flying out of her messy ponytail. Out of the corner of his eyes, Sasuke saw his brother standing by the third window, slyly pushing the lamp into the bushes below.

But then there was this foot planted firmly on his chest and he instantly looked up the slim calf of Sakura's right left leg into her slightly flushed face. The right corner of her head had the tinge of a bruise beginning to bloom. As she crouched down until their faces were just inches apart, his heart began to race again.

He couldn't help but wonder if she could hear it.

When she spoke, it was with her breath across his face and a slight purr.

"There's a very good reason that I made the varsity soccer team and you didn't."

* * *

><p><strong>To possibly be continued?<strong>


	2. Crocodile Tears

**Dedication**: to summer weather! To looking at shirtless pictures of guys posted on Facebook & wondering if it's healthy to be able to see _that _much of their abs… (Note to Saraa: Sure, maybe it's hot, BUT I STILL THINK IT'S SCARY LOOKING.) & to Saraa for beta-ing~  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I do not own Naruto.

* * *

><p>"See the airplane, Sasuke-kun? With its precious cargo? Open up your mo- I mean, the <em>hanger <em>and let the airplane in!"

Sakura stared hopefully at Sasuke.

When his mouth remained stubbornly closed, she tried a different tack.

"Brooooooom." Her hand carried the spoon through careful loops that circled Sasuke's head before aiming right for his mouth again. "VROOOOOOM-."

Still closed.

"Sasuke-kunnnnnn," she wailed. "Why won't you let the plane _land_?"

"Because I'm not _one_, Sakura."

The girl threw her arms in the air and some of the white mush fell off the spoon onto Sasuke's bangs.

His right eye twitched. He swore that he heard Itachi chuckling from his spot leaning against the door frame.

"Sakura," he growled.

But he was ignored.

"Not even Kurenai's baby has that much difficulty eating when I babysit him when she goes on a night out, so tell me Sasuke-kun – what are you incapable of doing that a six-month old can? What makes this so difficult?"

He didn't answer.

The girl shoved the airplane spoon into his hand, not noticing the way he winced when the left wing dug under his thumbnail the slightest bit. "Then just eat it yourself! If you hadn't insisted on being so _stubborn_, you wouldn't have become such a mess. It's just some _cheesecake_, for goodness sake! Which I made for you despite the fact that you hit me in the head with a soccer ball."

Sakura began pacing, so righteously indignant that she didn't notice Sasuke inching his chair away slowly.

"Ugh, you'd think you'd feel some guilt, you know? Because this bruise is still on my face and I have had more than my fair share of sympathetic glances in the past three days. In fact, on my way to your house today, some man gave me the business card for the Domestic Abuse Hotline! I'm too young to look abused!"

For some reason that Sasuke couldn't discern (but, all the same, was thankful for), she stopped ranting.

But she was back to looking at him and… God, not that.

The eyes.

It was just a cheesecake –fine, a raspberry cheesecake – and Sakura had been foisting it on him for the past ten minutes.

But using her eyes against him – it wasn't fair.

She knew as well as he did that he was expected to be the Perfect Gentlemen (when he wasn't attempting to knock over ugly lamps). He still remembered the second thing his father told him about being one (The first being, "Do not hit girls."): "Do not make a girl cry."

And there was Sasuke, staring at Sakura as her eyes widened and wet until they were pools of sea green.

Growing and growing…

And was she pouting? His eyes zeroed in on her mouth.

Her lower lip was caught under her teeth as both corners turned down and they were scrunched up as if she actually was hurt.

Internally, he started panicking. His breath was coming out perhaps twice as fast as normal and his heart was definitely not at rest.

"Sasuke."

Thankful for a reason to look away from Sakura's trembling lower lip, the young man turned to face the doorway where his brother was staring at him.

The look on Itachi's face was one of his usual ones. It had a little more exasperation than amusement in his single lifted brow that it normally did, to be sure, and his arms were crossed, left elbow bracing his body against the oak paneling. Everything about his posture read the same way to Sasuke: his brother was feeling lazy but ready to poke his forehead at the slightest provocation.

Sasuke didn't really know why. It wasn't as if he had missed something.

"Sakura felt bad about possibly… I think she said the angle of her kick might have made your nose slightly off center, even if it just nicked the last inch of it. I told her not to worry – your nose was crooked anyway – but she insisted on using our kitchen to make you a cheesecake. Wouldn't let Kisame or Shisui have any. Let me help, though."

He paused before lightly uttering what seemed to Sasuke to be a heavy conclusion.

"If I were you, I'd think _very_ carefully about your decision on eating the cake."

And Sasuke _was_.

"Aniki," he took a breath, "when I was five, you put a live earthworm in my mud pie – the one we made in kindergarten with pudding and crumbled Oreo cookies. When I was eight, you cooked a squirrel, told me it was a chicken, and then let Shisui tell me after I was done eating it. Then, when I turned _fourteen_, you interfered with my birthday cake."

He shuddered at the memory – their mother had been all _gross_ and _teary-eyed_ over the fact that Itachi had offered to cut the cake for his brother.

Little did either of them know that Itachi had chosen one specific slice in which he had substituted some of the flour for leaves when Mikoto had taken a bathroom break while waiting for the oven to heat up.

She thought it was bonding and was horribly distressed when Sasuke started spitting out his birthday cake, ordering their guests to "leaves".

"And just last week, you put water skippers in my morning cereal! So," he smirked, "I think I've learned well enough by now that if you are anywhere near my food, I shouldn't eat it."

Itachi rubbed his nose. Sasuke could've sword he heard him say, "And he learns the lesson at the least appropriate time possible. Foolish little brother…" before Itachi looked back at him and stared at him.

That was his least favorite of Itachi's looks – the one that said he was considering a plan of action.

One that, nine times out of ten, Sasuke would not like.

And he really didn't like it.

Before he knew what was happening, Itachi had stepped away from the doorway and was in front of him with the airplane spoon. A detached look on his face, he grabbed Sasuke's nose and held it shut, earning him a howl of pain as it was still tender from the incident a few days before. But he was was quickly silenced with a mouthful of cheesecake.

"Ita-sdfsg."

And then another.

"_Sto-faks_!"

And another.

"Sasuke?" He barely heard Sakura's voice over the voices in his head saying, "_Breathe through your mouth_."

And another.

Sasuke lost count as piles of the creamy concoction were, for all intents and purposes, lobbed into his mouth. He couldn't breathe – was _suffocating_.

All he could do was try to push Itachi and his stupid face away while swallowing cheesecake with a side of oxygen.

One mouthful after another.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Sakura as she watched him swallow an entire slice of cheesecake. Her eyes were still wide, but it wasn't the same. She looked surprise and her eyes were instantly dry.

There was the trace of a happy smile on her lips though, and he concentrated on that rather than the way Itachi was almost purposefully hitting the back of his throat with the spoon.

She was smiling, he was suffering, and Itachi was most definitely enjoying himself.

All was as it should be.

As soon as Itachi stopped shoveling cheesecake in his mouth and he was sure Sasuke had finished the last gulp of cheesecake, he let go of his nose. Sasuke felt his older brother watching him as he took a shuddering gasp of air, gingerly checking for new bruises.

Apparently satisfied that his task was complete, he left the kitchen.

Sasuke didn't watch him leave because, right then Sakura tilted her head and looked at him, that haunted look in her eyes.

He knew that look.

The real one – not necessarily the I'm-about-to-cry look, but the one that he'd seen their first day of kindergarten when some of the girls took it upon themselves to inform her that she was a freak that would never amount to anything.

Naruto made him go with him to tell those girls to shove off – and surely things changed.

A little bit. Or a lot.

Sakura became the captain of the varsity soccer team – the salutatorian (second only to himself, of course) – she became something more than the notches on bedposts that those girls could speak of.

But sometimes that look came back.

The one that bled insecurity.

"Sakura…" He started before hesitating.

"Yeah?"

Thinking for a second, Sasuke rolled his tongue over his top row of teeth. He tasted a hint of the cheesecake.

And decided he owed it to her to tell her the truth.

"The cheesecake… it tasted good."

And her face _beamed_.

She pounced on him and squeezed him tight before slowly shifting her head a little bit past his chin…

They blinked at each other slowly and he didn't really know why he was leaning forward or why she was coming closer.

But he knew that something was about to happen – something big. There was this sound in his head like waves swelling up against some distant shore, accompanying this diverted attention between her lips and her eyes. Sasuke absentmindedly wondered if she could hear his heart beat because he could hear his own and this fainter beat that was in sync wish his and he was about to tell her-

Then someone took a wrong turn and their noses collided.

("_I'm so sorry!_")

"_Fu-_."


End file.
